Flowers
by blueandblack
Summary: 12 100 word drabbles based on the prompt 'Flowers'. Various ships and characters.


Crush, Quil/Claire

--

When Claire is eleven she has a monumental crush on Quil.

She spends all her time wandering around the garden humming love songs she will laugh at when she is older, picking daisies and whispering _he loves me he loves me not_ with each downy white petal.

She decides she's so in love she can't eat, but she always caves and takes the sandwich eventually.

And she's far too in love for sleeping, but in the end her starry eyes will slip closed.

When Claire is eleven she has a monumental crush on Quil that lasts at least a week.

--

Hero, Mike

--

Mike comes by with a bunch of daisies when she's in the hospital. They aren't exactly glamorous, but they're all he can afford at the moment. And besides, he doesn't want to come on too strong.

Bella would hate it if he brought roses or something.

When he asks for her room number at the desk, the nurse tells him someone's already with her. He assumes it's her father, but the nurse says no, a boy, Edward.

Of course. Edward.

She'd probably love it if _he_ brought roses.

Edward Cullen the big hero.

Mike leaves the daisies at the desk.

--

Garden, Rosalie

--

There's a small garden behind the Cullen house that is all Rosalie's. Nobody else is particularly interested, though Esme is always pleased when she brings in flowers for the house.

She doesn't like to cut them though, really. She prefers to watch them bloom and fade in the earth.

She plants vegetables one year. Peas, cabbages, pretty orange carrots that she will pull out of the soil in good time.

The Cullens have no use for vegetables, of course. Rosalie just likes to watch them grow.

She gives them Bella to take home. She and her father can enjoy them.

--

Holiday, Jacob/Bella

--

Yellow, red, dry green. Poppies and tall grass. Lips.

The sun was high and it was _hot._

"Jake," Bella pushed uselessly at him. "I'm suffocating."

He rolled off her with a sigh, pouted.

She giggled. "Give me a minute to cool down. I'll let you know when you can ravish me again."

Jacob grinned, stretching. Russet skin glistened under a thin layer of sweat. He rolled back with a tiny white flower, brushed it along her collarbone.

"This is okay, right? I'm not touching."

Eyes burned. Soft petals twirled.

Tickled skin, a heartbeat.

_I want you._

Bella didn't last long.

--

White Rose, Esme and Rosalie

--

In the years following her change, Rosalie was not okay.

She couldn't cry anymore, not wet, salty, tangible tears, but she would do everything else for hours on end – shaking, heaving, holding herself.

Esme would pull her close, cradle her to her chest like a child, whisper softly, soothingly "My Rose, my little white Rose."

That was Esme's special name for her daughter.

White Rose.

It meant sympathy, and her heart ached for this broken girl.

It meant purity, and she was determined that Rosalie would see herself that way: still pure, unsullied by the horrors she had suffered.

--

Grave, Jacob/Bella

--

She doesn't have a grave.

She _is_ her grave. A walking, talking shrine to the dead remnants of his Bella.

Jacob has been putting flowers on his mother's grave since he was a child, but he has nowhere to put Bella's.

That is until he decides that it doesn't matter whether there's a decomposing body in the ground, a pile of ash in an urn. He just needs somewhere that belongs to her in his mind.

Every so often he lays flowers by a bone-white trunk on the beach, anchoring them with stones so they can't escape with the wind.

--

Corsage, Quil/Claire

--

"You do realize this thing is pink and you're wearing red?"

Quil pinned the corsage carefully to Claire's dress.

She sighed. "Yeah, but it's my fault. I forgot to tell him I changed my mind and went with the red at the last minute."

Quil glanced out the window at the boy on the porch being grilled by Claire's parents.

"Want me to make you another one?"

"_Make_ me one?" she asked, puzzled.

He shrugged. "Sure, you guys have rose bushes."

Claire giggled, kissed his cheek, careful not to squash her corsage against his chest.

"You're awesome. But it's fine."

--

Smile, Jacob/Bella

--

Jacob bought her flowers once.

He spent twenty dollars on a bunch of purple irises for Bella, lost his nerve at her door, stuffed them in the Swans' garbage bin.

_Twenty dollars. Fuck._

She was so sad that day and he wanted to see her smile so badly he even considered digging the flowers back out.

But the smile would only be an awkward show of politeness, so he let it be.

That next morning Bella took out the trash, caught sight of brown paper and soft, rich purple.

She pulled the mangled irises out of the bin.

She smiled.

--

Two Things, Edward/Bella

--

When they're married Edward brings Bella flowers every week and she smiles at the sweet constancy of it. It's so adorably old-fashioned and _Edward_ of him.

She smiles, but she cringes inside where it can't hurt him.

Bella hates cut flowers, she even hates flowers when they're rooted in the ground because they all die, at some point they all wither and die.

Edward still hasn't turned her and she's not even sure it's what she wants anymore.

And yet she knows with perfect clarity what she _doesn't_ want.

Two things.

To live without Edward.

To wither before his eyes.

--

Southern, Jasper/Alice

--

"Honey, I'm home!" Alice called out, struggling through the door with all her bags.

Jasper stepped into the hallway, smiled fondly.

"Ah, I see you did plenty of shopping while you were shopping."

Alice fished around in one of the enormous bags, pulled out a slightly crumpled bunch of flowers.

She held them out to Jasper, grinning.

"For you."

He raised an eyebrow. "Isn't the gentleman supposed to give these to the lady?"

Alice rolled her eyes. "You can be so _southern_ sometimes, Jasper. I'm a liberated female, okay? And besides," She leaned in, kissed him sweetly. "You love tulips."

--

Thoughts I, Sam/Leah

--

When Sam started sending a dozen red roses to Emily daily, the whole reservation buzzed.

Leah just listened.

She listened and thought of last summer, when she'd had the flu for a week and had moped at home while everyone else was at the beach.

She had been going through her third box of tissues when she'd seen Sam bounding up the porch steps to the front door.

He opened it without knocking, as he usually did, stepped into the kitchen with a broad smile and a ragged fistful of pansies, geraniums, bluebells.

"I am the scourge of flowerbeds everywhere."

--

Thoughts II, Sam/Leah

--

Red roses. The florist said they meant love, passion, devotion. They were perfect.

They were also expensive. Sam grimaced every time he handed his card over, wondering how many more bouquets it was going to take.

One time he noticed a little pot of soft round flowers in the corner of the shop.

"What do they mean?" he asked.

The florist smiled. "They're pansies, from the French for thoughts."

Sam remembered stealing a bunch of those for Leah when she'd been sick last summer.

She'd blushed when he'd found one weeks later, pressed between the pages of her calculus textbook.


End file.
